God’s Aquarium
By Russell McKinney
Mitchell County
“I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted.” (Job 42:2, N.I.V.)
This verse begins Job’s apology to God after he has challenged God’s wisdom and justice in allowing him to suffer so much tragedy. Call it a confession or call it repentance, but the verse signals the end of Job questioning how God was running the universe. The God the verse describes is big enough to bring His thoughts, purposes, and plans to pass right over the top of all objectors. Job is saying that God is an irresistible, all-powerful deity who can plow His will straight through any resistance it might encounter. He’s saying, “Lord, if You want to do something, no one can stop You from doing it.”
But hold on a minute. Isn’t the Bible filled with stories involving people who actually did prevent God’s purposes, plans, and will from being done? It all started with Adam and Eve. If God’s plan was for them to continue endlessly in sinless perfection, they certainly thwarted that plan, didn’t they? Then along came Cain. If God’s plan was for him to bring the right kind of sacrifice and love to his brother Abel, we know what became of that plan. Furthermore, following Cain’s murder of Abel, he went out and fathered an entire line of descendants who were all rebels regarding God’s purposes, plans, and will. In the end, all of that rebellion culminated in the entire human race, except for Noah and his family, being killed off by way of the great flood.
The point is, that we can’t even get through six full chapters of the Bible without encountering millions of people who never conformed to God’s plans for their lives. This shows us that an individual’s free will does factor into the equation of God’s dealings with that individual. The only other conclusion to be drawn is that God actually willed Adam and Eve to eat that forbidden fruit, willed Cain to murder Abel, and willed the human race to reach a state of depravity worthy of almost complete annihilation. That alternative conclusion, of course, cuts completely against the hundreds and hundreds of Bible passages that teach that God is a God of holiness, love, compassion, mercy, and grace.
So, how exactly should we interpret Job 42:2? Well, if God is dead set on doing something and nothing can change His mind about it, He can do that something anytime and in any way He wants to do it. I mean, He’s not GOD for nothing!!! What’s fascinating about Him, though, is the fact that He desires voluntary submission so much that He not only builds a spiritual/moral free will into each individual but actually allows each individual to exercise that free will arbitrarily. Even if that individual uses free will to thwart (restrain, stop, prevent, undermine) His will, God won’t recreate or rewire that individual to produce obedience. As the classic line goes, “God doesn’t want robots who have to obey Him.”
The illustration of a home aquarium has always been helpful to me when it comes to understanding this balanced relationship between God’s sovereignty and man’s free will. Imagine an aquarium that sits on a stand in the living room of a home. This aquarium is filled with water and within all that water the fish swim around in a world created especially for them. This world includes gravel, rocks, plastic plants, a miniature sunken ship, a small treasure chest resting beside the ship, and a beautifully painted background. The aquarium also features an air pump, a filtering system, a light, and a heater.
Sometimes the fish in the aquarium get along with each other, but other times they fight and chase each other around. Sometimes the bigger fish even eat the smaller fish. Through it all, though, the owner of the aquarium is never threatened in any way. Regardless of what goes on among the fish inside the aquarium, he remains sovereignly aloof and in charge. He can do whatever he wants to do concerning the aquarium because the whole operation belongs to him and he’s the one who keeps it in operation.
Do you see how this illustration can be applied to God’s relationship with individuals? Even when people refuse to voluntarily submit to God’s plans, purposes, and will, He always remains in charge of the universe in which those individuals live. I don’t want to stretch the illustration too far, but wouldn’t it be something if the entire universe, including this earth and all the life upon it, is just an aquarium sitting in a corner of heaven? That, perhaps, is a good way of interpreting Job’s comment about God’s omnipotence. God, as the eternal, universal aquarium keeper, can do whatever He wants to do concerning life in the aquarium, but He allows individuals to swim the course of their own choosing. For that matter, Jesus did compare evangelism to fishing, didn’t He? Now that I think about it, maybe that comparison was more appropriate than we have ever realized.
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Russell Mckinney lives in the English Woods area of Spruce Pine and serves as the pastor of Roan Mountain Baptist Church in Bakersville.
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